Thanksgiving!

Yesterday was the fourth Thursday in November, which in every corner of my world means Thanksgiving should be celebrated if at all possible. Explaining Thanksgiving to the many people I imposed the holiday upon this year has reminded me that I don't entirely believe in the fable of Indians and Pilgrims clasping hands around an outdoor table in crisp fall weather, BUT I do believe in how nice it is to cook and eat and drink and wash dishes with as many family and friends as we can fit.

So, I was lucky to be invited back to the old Santa Theresa mansion, where many more Americans and Europeans have accumulated since I left a month ago. Every Thursday Naldo, the house keeper guy and most beloved person in Santa Theresa, cooks what probably amounts to an entire cow, and I've continued to go to these little parties even though I don't live there anymore. The house is much nicer when you don't have to take showers there! Sitting out on the terrace with the entire North Zone blinking below and drinking caiparinhas mixed with Maracuyá, Manga, Limão, Mamão, and Abaxi is as good as it sounds. And yesterday was Thanksgiving, so I brought a beet salad. Unfortunately, yesterday was also eventful in Rio for other reasons...BOPE (the special police) invaded one of those twinkiling spots in the North Zone and the city was (still is...?) thrown into a state of alert and alarm. The trafficantes are starting to rebel against the UPP pushing them out of their favelas, and have been setting fires to omnibuses and cars around the city...more than 40 yesterday! Globo, the Big Brother media of Brazil, had non stop coverage of the operation, supplied by their two helicopters which hovered above wherever the traficantes were congregated. We could, and did, watch their every nose-pick and gun-wave for hours all day from every juice bar and gas station. There's nothing like constant helicopter footage of young men hanging out in the mountains with guns to inspire fear in the entire population of a city!

At 9:30 the city stopped the buses, so, for hopefully the last time, I slept in Santa Theresa again. After an all night Wu Tang Clan dance party! A weird Thansgiving.

And, since Parada de Lucas is 3 train stops after Penha, where all of this stuff is taking place, I think I won't go to my second Candomblé ceremony with Neuza. I forgot to write about the first one, which I went to a few weeks ago...well, I have a degree in Latin America and Caribbean Studies, which if for nothing else is at least good for having displayed one or two movies about Candomblé to me. Have you ever seen a documentary about Candomblé? It is a Afro-Brazilian religion that developed in the north. I don't know much about the religion, actually, but it is split between many nations, they believe in many orishas, and the energy of everything. The ceremony I went to was hosted by a house in the outskirts of Rio (my second time outside of the city limits!), in a semi-rural, even more poor than anywhere else I've been neighborhood. We got there around 10 pm, after hanging out at the yard of Neuza's congregation, celebrating her Pai de Santo's 50th. He is an annoying, flamboyant, demanding man. I think that I startled him by being there so almost right after meeting him he invited me to light a candle and make a wish in a dark little room. The room was full of an alter with feathers and candles and other things all over it, and bowels of various substances on the ground, including money, blood and a chicken. I felt a little scared to make a wish here but I did, the most innocent and unlikely to turn on me wish I could think of! When I told the guy my wish, he was a little shocked and said, "That is a good wish. Most people wish for money or a man." Well, I thought about it, but maybe those are dangerous things to wish for in a bloody room, even though it was the nicest bloody room I've ever seen.

Ah, my observations are kind of pointless, because I don't really know what was going on...but eventually we made it to the party, and after a few hours of breezing around there, waiting, it started. Drums and men and women and children dressed in elabrorate skirts and head-dresses or just loose white or African-printed cloth walking/dancing around in a circle. The first to fall into a trance was the Pai de Santo of the house we were visiting. He jerked out of the procession and sort of jumped onto his knees, put his hands behind his back and made a crowing sound. Everyone, the partipants and the observers, started clapping and yelling to welcome the orixá. Then some of the women brought him into a room and he came out later in woman's clothes and a very distinct expression on his face, one eye squinted and his mouth in a kind of grimace-smile. Around the outskirts of the terrace where the people were walking were tables full of alchohol and fruit. He was given a red goblet and a cigarette and started carousing around, sometimes dancing and spinning, sometimes talking to people and greeting us. Others in the circle soon started falling into a trance, every time with jerks and falling onto their knees and crowing. Some people seemed to be resisting, some people seemed to take on the orixá with enthusiasm...it hurt to see one young man jump high in the air and land on his knees with his hands clasped behind him! The terrace was full of orixás, beer was flowing, drums were non-stop, everyone was singing and dancing. The words to the songs, from what I understood, were lovely and unexpected. I would like to research them a little.

People came in and out of the trance state, people on the outside (including Neuza, who was sitting next to me with a scrap of white cloth tied around her waist over her clothes as a symbol of Africa (?)) also started falling into a trance. Candomblé is the only religion that embraced homosexuals in Brazil, and there was one transvestite who was singing with the drums, with a blond wig and a long purple sheath and a very friendly face, who, when in the trance, took on a very scary orixá, a male one who wore a tall top-hat and made a loud moaning noise all of the time. Most of the orixá poeople, when they greeted a person, made the "Caw! Caw! Caw!" noise and kissed you twice and said "boa noite", but this guy moaned and drooled and shook peoples hands so hard that he shook their whole body like an electric shock. I was scared when he slowly came over to Neuza and me, and tried to avoid his transformed, painful gaze. First he greeted Neuza, and instead of shaking her hand he took of his hat and put it on her head. I knew that she was trying to resist falling into a trance, and that proximity to people in a trance had a strong influence over her...she froze and didn't know what to do...meanwhile, I was being greeted by the scary guy, and instead of shaking my hand, he turned me around, ran his hand from my head to my feet, turned me around again and reversed the motion, and sealed the encounter with a nod. What did it mean? Neuza had called her Pai over, who replaced the hat onto the orixá's head and led him away, and we stood there shaken up for a few minutes.

Oh, it went on and on, with more food, more beer, more orixás. I took a nap on a hard bench at dawn, and when I woke up the ceremony had ended and people were just sitting around, reunioning. They were trying to cook a feast of meat, but everyone was too drunk to get the fire going, hence I ate a bite of raw BBQ which really disgusted me and made my already bad mood worse. The dogs in the yard started hanging around me because I was dropping so much food on the ground. I ended up talking to a woman of 45 who had a black eye and 3 grandchildren. I remembered seeing her in the ceremony, a very proud and friendly looking women who danced beautifully. Now she was so drunk and tired that she kept falling asleep when the conversation lulled. Everyone was incredibly nice, except for me because at this point I was tired and done with Candomblé, but I didn't know how to get home and for Neuza it looked like the party was just beginning. Thank goodness one of the neighbors have me a ride to the main road and I finally reached home around 1pm, only to find the Copacabana Parada dos Gays in full swing! Woohoo! Rio never stops :)